I couldn't finish it. It was honestly just not interesting to me. It was well-written but not something I felt compelled to keep reading.

This is Nate Staniforth's personal experience and journey of becoming disillusioned with magic and his search for magic across India. He searches for inspiration, for the truth to magic and finds more than he could have ever expected. This is a beautiful read about the wonders of magic and excitement.

4.5 stars

Thank you to Bloomsbury USA for providing a copy of Nate Staniforth's memoir, Here is Real Magic: A Magician's Search for Wonder in the Modern World, in exchange for an honest review.

PLOT- Ever since Nate Staniforth was a child, he had always been captivated by magic, specifically, how a magic trick can bring a sense of wonder to even the most jaded adults. Staniforth persued his dream of becoming a magician and soon found himself burned out on a rigorous national tour and loosing what he had loved about being a magician. Stanfiorth takes a hiatus and travels to India to meet with street magicians, in the hopes that he can regain the spark that he had once felt for his craft.

LIKE- I absolutely love a magic show and I'm one of those adults that Staniforth loves to have in his audience, someone who allows themselves to be swept away by the wonder. Staniforth writes about the need as a performer to never allow yourself to lose your own excitement. A few years ago, my family went to see David Copperfield in Las Vegas. Copperfield is one of the premiere magicians in the world and Staniforth even mentions a childhood trip to see Copperfield perform. Copperfield's show was the worst magic show and one of the worse live performances that I have ever seen. It had nothing to do with his talent and tricks, but everything to do with his lack of enthusiasm. Staniforth may not be as famous as Copeprfield (yet), but he knew enough to realize that he needed to take a break and reevaluate where his career was heading. I thought this was a very bold move, especially as he decided to take this risk just as his career was taking off.

I enjoyed reading about his travels in India, especially when he met with a family of magicians living in the slums. This portion of the story is very transformative, filled with sensory descriptions and self-reflection on the part of Staniforth. Staniforth is a likable narrator and it's easy to join him on his journey, including the excitement that he experiences through his travels. It truly makes you realize that "magic" isn't limited to a glitzy stage, but can be found in the every day.

DISLIKE- Nothing. This is Real Magic is a compelling, fast-paced memoir.

RECOMMEND- Yes! This is Real Magic is part memoir and part travel journal. It's a wonderful pick for readers who enjoy magic, but who also can appreciate the wonders of every day life, especially lives different from their own.

I.

“Do you want to keep doing magic?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to do anything else?”

“No.”

If you replace “doing magic” with “writing,” I’ve pretty much had this same conversation in the recent past with Eric, my husband. Staniforth has it with his wife after several years of successful touring as a magician. He had fallen out of love with magic, so to speak. The wonder he originally felt when doing magic and had seen on the faces of his audience had faded. This book is the travelogue of his trip to India to find wonder again.

II.

There is an aspect of this books that makes me somewhat uncomfortable. I’m aware of the cultural appropriation that occurred within magic in the late 19th/early 20th century. The exotic Far East was all the rage and many western magicians took on the persona of Indian fakirs for tricks. The Indian rope trick, a hoax, only solidified the notion that people in India believed in mysticism and needed civilizing. Staniforth is aware of this too. He mentions Peter Lamont’s The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick both in the text and in his acknowledgements, yet, when he wants to see “real” magic, India is his first (only?) thought.

I can understand the want to visit a radically different culture in an effort to find a new perspective on magic. India has that, but Staniforth also shares his notion that wonder comes easier when you’re less burdened with knowledge. Which leave the possibility of an uncomfortable a==b==c comparison. I don’t think that Staniforth intends that, and he’s pretty quick to check his privilege, but why then just India? Why not travel the world looking for wonder?

III.

It’s hard to critique someone’s personal experience of the world. Staniforth is very earnest in his want to find wonder and inspire it in others. That also occasionally comes off as self-importance. He insists that magicians are a ridiculous lot and he isn’t satisfied with the wonder of magic only lasting to the theater door. I’m in the ridiculous profession of creating stories, but I don’t mind so much if the magic of the story fades when the book is closed. I also don’t have much trouble finding moments of wonder in my life, but I’m the sort that finds a rainbow to be more incredible because of the optics behind it.

Staniforth does find wonder, but finds it more in the people and beauty of India than in its magicians. His take-away is that we can find wonder when you slow down and let yourself. And really, I can’t argue with that.

HERE IS REAL MAGIC by Nate Staniforth takes the reader on a journey of discovery of what is magic and why magic is important. Within the book, Staniforth is a successful touring magician, but finds he is starting to lack inspiration and his touring magic show is becoming less special and more like work to him, so he decides to go to India to look for magical inspiration and hopefully find his magic identity which he feels he has either lost or never really had. In India, he find some much more than he ever expected.
As most successful magicians are, Staniforth is a perfectionist who works hard all the time at his craft. He tells of his early career as a magician and his triumphant successes and his monumental failures. He gives some history of magic, talking about how some of the great magicians influenced him, like Houdini. With all it's charms and warts, Staniforth walks the reader through life as a touring magician and what eventually pushes him to rediscover magic. His search, while seemingly aimless at first, becomes Staniforth's search for what magic really is, which is so much more that the performer; he finds it's the wonder, the feeling of excitement of the unexplained, and how it can connect humanity in ways few have ever written about The book is written like it seems Staniforth's mind flows, sometimes obsessively focused on a single topic, while other times he and the book seem to be unable to focus on anything for very long. Staniforth also does an excellent job of describing his travels all over India; helping the reading geographically following his movement, and describing the feelings the seem to be emoting all around him at every stop.
This is a book about magic, one man's discovery and society's take on it, but it is also a surprisingly pleasant travelogue of India. HERE IS REAL MAGIC leaves the reader thinking maybe he/she should go see a good magic show, but also that one's passionate study on a subject can lead to some wonderful things they didn't even know were there to begin with.

This one had me at magic. I love all things magic and, subsequently, magicians. By no deliberate design it seems that I primarily read about the subject in fictional form and watch it in nonfictional one, such as Netflix programs (and I think I have seen every one). I’ve never watched the author’s show, because it never made it on Netlfix probably, never even heard of him, but apparently he’s quite a popular touring magician and something of a theorist of his art form also. That is to me it’s an art form, to some it maybe be just some silly tricks. For the latter mentality this book might go some distance to dispel their convictions. Then again, magic isn’t magical for everyone. At some juncture it was no longer even all that magical to the author, so he traveled to rediscover that Wow factor and find out more about its meaning. In fact, the title sort of had me expecting something along the lines of Eric Weiner’s awesome Geography of books, but this is more of a single destination travelogue. India. Land of Mystery. It actually works really well as a travelogue, it’s descriptive and detailed. It’s just that it seemed like yet another one of those…reasonably well to do first world country citizen goes to wade through previously unimagined poverty and privation to find beauty and meaning…books. What is it about third world living (yes, one can make an argument for India being the world’s 7th largest economy and fastest improving, but the numbers alone don’t matter in the countless slums) that is so inspirational? Isn’t it all just a sort of lottery, what one is born into, what one learns to live with. Do you really clean your plate of food every time because there are starving children in the world? And if so, does this starvation need to be witnessed beforehand? Can’t one just be aware that it is a fact and therefore be glad to have what they have? And is it really that simple…after all everyone lives in different places with different standards of living, different quality of life and these criteria are all completely subjective to and contingent on one’s environment. But digressions aside…even if this is just one of those books, it’s still a good read, well written, well meaning, probably can still be safely labeled as memoir as oppose to motivational. It’ll remind you to approach the world more openly, more childlike, more able and willing to be surprised…and then you’ll go to work, pay some bills, buy some groceries, endure some tedious commute, watch some tv…and possibly/probably forget all about it. Unless, presumably, you actually go travel India for a while. Personally, I much prefer to watch a good magic show. Those always have a Wow factor for me. Always. Thanks Netgalley.

4.5 stars.

I've always had a thing about magic and magicians and though I can't do a single trick, I've read lots of books about them. Here Is Real Magic: A Magician's Search for Wonder in the Modern World is a delightful addition to my magic and wonder shelf.

After dedicating thousands of hours to learning and performing magic, Nate Staniforth begins to lose the sense of wonder that drew him to become a magician in the first place. Finding a book about magic in India, he decides to make a trip there to try to recapture his sense of wonder. Stanforth is a good writer and his wit and descriptive powers made me enjoy the trip and remember the times when I too have enjoyed the delicious sense of meaning that wonder provides.

Highly recommended for those who enjoyed reading books set in India such Tahir Shah's Sorcerer's Apprentice and also for fans of Ricky Jay and other magicians.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.